


Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime

by ImprobableDreams900



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Art, Christmas, Domestic, Fluff, Gen, Good Omens Holiday Exchange 2016, SO MUCH FLUFF DEAR LORD HELP ME, ace/platonic relationship, adorableness, itty bitty bit of angst because I'm me and I can't help myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 19:32:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9399875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/pseuds/ImprobableDreams900
Summary: Crowley decides Aziraphale needs to celebrate Christmas properly this year.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2016 GO Christmas Exchange, and cross-posted on their livejournal page in three parts at http://go-exchange.livejournal.com/209883.html, /209961.html, and /210326.html.
> 
> The title is referencing the Christmas song; if you're not familiar with it, I'd recommend the original by Paul McCartney or the cover by Demi Lovato.
> 
> For anyone who's read my Eden!verse, there're two brief cameos you can pat yourself on the back for finding.
> 
> I did my best to weed out the Americanisms, and a big thanks to doctortreklock and spinner12 for beta-ing.

 

Aziraphale, for all intents and purposes, lived in the mid nineteen-fifties. His idea of high fashion was a tweed jacket with elbow patches, he refused to consider any book published in the last half-century “literature,” and he still made his tea the old-fashioned way: by boiling the water in an actual kettle on the hob. Possibly the closest he had ever come to the turn of the millennium was when he listened to Queen in the Bentley.

Aziraphale lived a comfortable sixty years behind the curve, and to this trend Christmas was no exception. 

Every year, Aziraphale volunteered at the local homeless shelter, ladling soup and handing out sandwiches to men in hoodies and women with tight expressions. He went carolling with the local parish choir, singing only the most traditional, time-honoured hymns, usually the ones where counter melodies were considered too forward-thinking to merit inclusion. Occasionally Aziraphale would pull out a miniature Christmas tree and place it on the bookshop’s counter, and decorate it sombrely with candles and ribbon. He did keep a sharp gaze on the lit candles at all times, though—there was no sense inviting trouble.

For the past sixty years, Crowley had tolerated his friend’s antiquated behaviour with amusement, but he was now beginning to think that things were getting a little out of hand. The world had changed a lot in the last sixty years, and exceptionally so in the last twenty—how long could he leave Aziraphale on this destructive path before the angel became so entrenched in the past that he could no longer get in touch with the present? It would be for Aziraphale’s own good to show him around a little bit, Crowley reasoned to himself, while the angel still had a chance to progress past the prime ministership of Winston Churchill.

Christmas as a holiday had also changed significantly in the last sixty years, and Crowley felt the movement towards secularism and consumerism was exactly the right direction this sort of thing ought to be heading.

And so it was that Crowley decided that this was the year in which he refused to watch Aziraphale keep one more candlelit vigil, and resolved to drag Aziraphale, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the twenty-first century.

(This was not the first time Crowley had attempted to do so, and his previous endeavours had met with mixed results. His most spectacular failure was in 1993, when he attempted to show Aziraphale how to use the hideously expensive computer he’d bought from some chaps in California. His well-intentioned efforts had resulted in an impromptu exorcism that, had it been directed at Crowley, would have certainly resulted in a collapse of the Arrangement until Crowley, having exacted his revenge and stormed off in a huff, got lonely.)

Crowley made his intentions known to Aziraphale when, on the first of December, he arrived at the angel’s Soho bookshop with one of the largest spruce trees Aziraphale had ever seen in tow. 

Aziraphale couldn’t convince his mouth to form any words, couldn’t do anything except stare in disbelief at the wall of pine needles forcing itself through the bookshop door, fully ignoring the ‘closed’ sign as it did so.

“Hey, angel,” Crowley said altogether too cheerfully, casting a glance and a smile at where Aziraphale was sitting in shock behind the counter. The demon’s sunglasses were perched on his nose as usual, but that couldn’t disguise the devious glint in his eye. Crowley turned back to the wall of pine needles.

“Come on, it’ll fit!” he called, motioning with his hands, and Aziraphale noticed several men in green and yellow uniforms helping manoeuvre the tree through the doorway. Given the modest dimensions of the door and the enormous girth of the tree, the latter should never have fitted, but Crowley waved his hand encouragingly and abruptly the tree had passed the threshold. Pine needles cascaded to the wooden floor, and several branches banged into the nearest bookshelves as the tree settled onto the floor with a series of snaps and groans. As though this assault on his books had been the cue he was waiting for, Aziraphale leapt to his feet.

“Crowley!”

“Now put her right-side up!” Crowley directed the workmen, waving his hands in a manner he probably thought was helpful.

“What are you doing?” Aziraphale demanded, coming around the counter and planting himself firmly between the demon and the nearest bookshelf.

“It’s Christmas!” Crowley told him brightly, ducking out of the way of a branch as the tree lurched into a forty-five-degree position. He moved to stand next to the none-too-pleased angel, seemingly unaware of his friend’s scowl.

“No, it’s not,” Aziraphale said tartly. “Christmas is the twenty-fifth.”

Crowley looked at the angel over the top of his sunglasses. “Not anymore it isn’t. Have you even _been_ into a shopping centre? Christmas stuff everywhere!”

Aziraphale gave the demon a testy look and glowered at the tree when one of its branches took a swipe at his bookcases. “My bookshop is not a shopping centre, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, angel, you can keep your precious books. We’re just sprucing the place up.” Crowley grinned at him again. “Sprucing? Spruce? Get it?”

Aziraphale frowned at him. He, of course, “got it,” but humour hardly seemed appropriate. He kept his eyes trained on where the tree was still bobbing around dangerously close to his bookshelves.

Crowley deflated a little. “Huh, tough crowd,” he said, and turned his gaze back to the workmen, who were hoisting the tree into a vertical position and fumbling around with a tree stand of not inconsiderable diameter.

“It’s not going to fit!” one of the workmen called.

“Yeah, it will,” Crowley shouted back. “Just shove it up there.”

After a short squabble and some protests, the workmen did as they were told, and Crowley turned back to Aziraphale, who was still glowering at him.

“Think of it this way, angel,” Crowley said, clapping his hand onto Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I’m celebrating Christmas, aren’t I? Isn’t that what you lot are all about?”

Aziraphale frowned at him until Crowley retracted his hand. “You’ll recall there wasn’t an abundance of spruce trees in Bethlehem.”

Crowley waved his words away. “That was ages ago, angel; no one cares about that anymore. This is how Christmas is celebrated now. And this—” he turned to indicate the tree, which was nearing a vertical position, the top metre or so rammed right up against the ceiling so the crown of the tree jutted out sideways, “—is how we’ll celebrate it.”

“Crowley, you don’t celebrate Christmas.” Aziraphale’s tone indicated he thought this was an unlikely trend to break.

Crowley shrugged. “Not historically, maybe, but what’s there not to love? Consumerism gone wild, family get-togethers with unpleasant uncles with strong political beliefs, dubious desserts, coercing children into behaving by telling them lies about jolly burglars—there’s so much potential, I don’t know how I missed it before!”

Aziraphale folded his arms, but the tree was no longer threatening his books, and he started to feel his irritation evaporate. Maybe he could use Crowley’s unexpected change of heart to his advantage. “Really? Christmas for the demon this year?”

“Sure,” Crowley said cheerfully. “What do you say, angel? You can’t possibly be planning on sitting around lighting those stupid candles again this year.”

Aziraphale stiffened a little, but, ever since the unfortunate mishap with Shadwell, he’d been a little leery about the candles himself. “Maybe,” he mumbled.

“Nah, we’ll do Christmas properly this year,” Crowley said. “The whole kit and caboodle, all nine yards, all...however many holes there are in golf.” Crowley’s voice trailed off, head swivelling towards where the workmen were stepping back from the tree. Several were standing with heads craned back, looking at the metre and a half of tree jammed against the ceiling. 

“Just think of it, angel,” Crowley said after a moment, coming out of his reverie and taking Aziraphale by the arm. Crowley took a step towards the tree and gestured at it expansively with his free hand, tugging the reluctant Aziraphale after him. “Lights and tinsel all the way around, and we can even put a star on the top, and maybe you can find some book ornaments or something. And it has that lovely fresh pine smell; it’s been getting a little musty in here, don’t you think?”

Aziraphale’s gaze went up and down the unfortunate spruce. It was clearly one of the tallest Crowley could find, and was nice and bushy all the way around, green boughs warm and inviting, if a little flat on the side that had had an unfortunate meeting with the floor. The crumpled top of the tree rather ruined the effect, in Aziraphale’s opinion, but if it had fit without any problems, Crowley probably wouldn’t have liked it half as much. The demon did like to vex him sometimes.

Aziraphale pictured the tree wrapped in strands of golden tinsel, brightly coloured Christmas lights, and candles. Then he scratched the candles; Crowley was right, that was just asking for trouble. Elegant silver bobbles, maybe, or blown glass icicles…

“Will the lights twinkle?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley’s gaze switched from the tree to his friend, and he grinned in triumph, eyes bright even behind his sunglasses. “You can stake your life on it.”

 

<< ~ >>

 

The following day the Soho Society, a community organisation Aziraphale hadn’t been aware existed until that moment, announced that they would be holding a competition encouraging members of the community to decorate their homes and businesses in true Christmas fashion. This was the first year the competition was being held, and, from the hasty design of the posters that had appeared all over the area overnight, Aziraphale gathered that the officers of the Soho Society hadn’t been aware of the plans until very recently, either.

Crowley, naturally, denied any and all interference, instead declaring that he intended to win the competition if he had to buy every giant blow-up snowflake and box of novelty Christmas lights in London. 

As Aziraphale watched Crowley pacing through the Christmas section of John Lewis, he wondered if the demon intended on doing just that.

“Gold or silver tinsel, angel?” Crowley asked, looking critically between the two neatly wrapped bundles of tinsel in his hands, each bound in a festive green cardboard sleeve.

“Either’s fine,” Aziraphale said, watching Crowley’s furrowed expression with some amusement.

“Both, you’re right,” Crowley announced after a moment’s thought, tossing both into the trolley and snagging a red bundle as well when he thought Aziraphale wasn’t looking.

“Can we get lights now?” the angel asked. He’d really only come along to pick out the lights; knowing Crowley, he’d find the one set that didn’t twinkle and then feign ignorance of Aziraphale’s preferences when he pointed out that that wasn’t what he wanted.

“Yes, yes, hang on,” Crowley said, pushing the trolley a metre down the aisle and then stopping to paw through a display of miniature light-up snowmen. “I thought patience was a virtue?”

“It’s been three hours.”

“Oh, we’re just getting started!” Crowley said cheerfully, moving the trolley another metre and stopping to pick something white and fluffy up off the bottom shelf. It was a pair of white boots clearly not meant to be actually worn outside or interact with real snow of any description; a huge fluff of white fur lined the top, and oversized candy cane decorations were pasted on its sides. Crowley waggled a boot at him temptingly.

“Really, my dear?”

Crowley stroked the white fluff with exaggerated care, his hand disappearing almost entirely into the fur. He held it out to Aziraphale invitingly, and waggled it again. “Come on, angel, live a little.”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley, sighed, and petted the fluffy boot. It was just as soft as it looked, and he tried to hide his disappointment when Crowley put it back on the shelf.

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Crowley said, managing to cover almost two metres this time before he stopped again, waylaid by the beginning of the clothing section. Crowley glanced over a row of knitted hats patterned with snowflakes and Father Christmases, but Aziraphale’s attention was arrested by a headband with a pair of felt reindeer antlers attached, complete with a red ribbon bow and tiny jingle bells. 

Aziraphale felt the sudden, irrational, overpowering desire to see Crowley wearing them.

“We’re just being thorough,” Crowley continued, blissfully unaware as he moved forward another fraction of a metre and started poking through some festively-decorated footed pyjamas. “We don't want to miss something by being hasty, and end up losing the competition, do we?”

Aziraphale didn't respond, and Crowley half-turned, mouth open to say something else.

It was then that Aziraphale pounced.

The look on Crowley’s face was glorious.

Once the surprise had worn off and Crowley’s hand had gone to his head to determine exactly what Aziraphale had subjected him to, the demon adopted a long-suffering expression. “Angel…”

Aziraphale was trying and failing to keep a straight face, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “You look lovely, my dear.”

Crowley grumbled something that might have been _“You_ look lovely,” and pulled the reindeer antlers off his head with a tinkle of jingle bells. He examined them for a few moments, running a finger down one of the felt antlers. Then his gaze flicked up to meet Aziraphale’s, and he grinned that devious, mischievous grin that only a demon in a very good mood can pull off properly.

“Oh, no,” Aziraphale said, picking up on what Crowley wanted to do with the ease of long practice.

“Come on, angel, it's only fair,” Crowley said, taking a smooth, almost serpentine step forward, golden eyes glinting.

Crowley lunged forward. Aziraphale let out a noise that was a little higher than he was strictly comfortable with, turned, and ran.

Behind him, Crowley skidded around a display of winter coats (only £25!) and Aziraphale ducked around a shelf piled high with winter-themed socks, knocking several pairs to the floor in the process. Aziraphale swerved around another shelf of socks and decided to double back in a loop, hoping to lose Crowley in the sea of Christmas-themed clothing.

The angel squeezed between two stands and slipped around the corner of a shelving unit. He skidded to a stop, breathing a little heavily and listening for any sounds of pursuit. He didn’t hear anything besides an employee being paged over the intercom and his own pulse beating in his ears, so Aziraphale allowed himself a triumphant grin at having evaded the demon. While he slowed down his breathing, Aziraphale took a moment to look around his refuge. He was still in the clothing section, and was currently surrounded by dozens and dozens of soft, colourful wool jumpers. They were patterned with red and green and gold and decorated with little bells and ribbon and appliqué Christmas trees and reindeer.

All thoughts of Crowley fled Aziraphale’s head.

The angel felt himself drawn to the nearest circular rack as though by an invisible force, and started poking through the jumpers. Some were merely winter-themed, while others showed Christmas trees, the star of Bethlehem, and shepherds. Aziraphale worked his way to the next rack, seeking out the most lavish jumper he could find; the miniature jingle bells and appliqué snowmen were irresistible.

When something jammed down hard onto his head, Aziraphale was so absorbed in making his selection that he jumped several inches, ramming his arm into the top of the rack and making it rattle.

“Gotcha!” Crowley crowed triumphantly, and Aziraphale spun, heart pounding, to see Crowley beaming at him. “You’re getting lazy, angel.”

Aziraphale took a deep breath to calm himself and reached for the jumper rack for support. His arm smarted uncomfortably. “Crowley.”

“Who else did you think it’d be?” Crowley asked, a hint of humour in his voice as he critically examined Aziraphale, eyes roving up to the reindeer antlers the angel knew he was currently sporting. “You’re right; that _is_ a good look.”

Aziraphale ignored him and turned back to the jumpers.

“What were you looking at, anyway?” Crowley asked, moving to get a better view. “Dear G—Sa—Adam,” Crowley exclaimed. “These humans don’t do things by halves, do they?”

“Aren’t they beautiful?” Aziraphale asked, moving to the next jumper and running his hand appreciatively over a beaded snowflake.

Crowley made a strangled coughing noise and took a moment to recover. “Don’t know if I’d say that.”

“You just don’t appreciate _art,”_ Aziraphale said loftily, floating over to the next rack to examine the jumpers over there.

“I know art when I see it,” Crowley said, walking over to another rack and prodding at the jumpers derisively. “Michelangelo’s _David_ was art. The Pantheon was art. Anything of Vermeer’s was art. _This—_ ” Crowley pulled a jumper off the rack and held it at arm’s length, gesturing at it with his other hand. “This is a four-year-old’s finger painting brought to life by an elderly woman with too much time on her hands.”

“Really now, my dear,” Aziraphale said, joining Crowley and holding the bottom edge of the jumper the demon was proffering, so that he could get a good look at it. It was bright red with a large appliqué green Christmas tree in the centre, decorated with tiny ornament-like beads and strands of silver plastic that resembled tinsel. There was a shiny gold star at the top of the tree, and presents piled around its base. An angel holding a trumpet bordered the tree on either side. It was actually quite lovely.

“Just—just— _look_ at it!” Crowley protested. “It’s _sparkly_.”

“They’re small,” Aziraphale said mildly, running a finger fondly over the strands of tinsel.

Crowley seemed to realise he wasn’t making his case and switched gears. “But it’s got _angels_ on it!” he protested.

“I _am_ an angel,” Aziraphale reminded him, taking the jumper from Crowley before he could shove it back on the rack. 

“They’re wearing _dresses_ ,” Crowley tried.

“They’re _robes,_ my dear,” Aziraphale said. “And it wasn’t so long ago that you and I were doing just that. I seem to recall you were quite mistrustful of trousers yourself, when they first came into fashion.”

“Nah, that was you, angel,” Crowley said evasively.

“No, I quite clearly remember you saying…what was it?” Aziraphale turned and started walking back in the direction that they’d left the trolley. “Something about ease of access?”

“Well, you know how it is,” Crowley said, sounding appropriately embarrassed, “sometimes a guy’s gotta take a leak—”

Aziraphale walked out of the jumper section and between the two sock shelves, conscientiously stopping to put the socks he’d knocked down back in their proper places.

“Hey, what are you doing with that?” Crowley changed the subject, hurrying after him; Aziraphale was still carrying the jumper.

“I’m going to buy it,” the angel announced.

“You’re not serious.”

“Perfectly,” Aziraphale said cheerfully. “It’s even in my size.” He reached the trolley and plonked the jumper into the basket.

“Oh, not in my trolley, you don’t,” Crowley said, moving forward quickly and snatching it out. “I’m not paying for that monstrosity.”

“Then I’ll buy it myself,” Aziraphale said, pulling the jumper from Crowley’s hands.

“Don’t be absurd,” Crowley said, snatching it back.

There was a small sound from the adjacent aisle, and they both turned to see a family with several small children in tow staring at them. It wasn’t much of a mystery as to why—two fully grown man-shaped beings fighting over a slightly sparkly jumper in front of a trolley piled high with Christmas decorations would have turned lesser heads. Aziraphale flushed cherry red and tugged the reindeer antlers off his head as the family moved on.

“You’re buying,” Crowley said after a moment, and tossed the jumper back at Aziraphale. “I refuse to have anything to do with it.”

Aziraphale caught the jumper, huffed, and looked down at the reindeer antlers in his hands. He reckoned he could get Crowley into them at least once more before the demon miracled them out of existence. Maybe he could get one of those “cam-e-rah” things and take a photograph.

Aziraphale looked up and locked eyes with Crowley. With a slow, deliberate motion, he set the antlers in the trolley, never breaking eye contact and silently daring the demon to challenge him.

Crowley’s left eyebrow quirked. “Oh, so that’s how we’re going to play it? In that case, if you’re making me buy that, I’m buying…” Crowley trailed off as he started down one of the other aisles, waving his hands as though he thought that would help conjure the perfect item. Who knew; maybe it would. Aziraphale followed him past a stack of Yule logs, already starting to regret this decision.

Crowley reached the end of the aisle, turned, and froze. A smile crept across his face. “This.”

Aziraphale reached the end of the aisle with some trepidation and turned as well. He spent a moment taking it in. “No.”

Crowley grinned. “Yes.”

“Where are you going to put it?”

“The bookshop, naturally.”

“It won’t fit.”

“Sure it will.” Crowley grinned.

“I retract the antlers.”

“No taksies-backsies, angel, you know how it works.”

“But… _Crowley_ —”

“I need it.”

Aziraphale considered his options. “You have to wear the antlers for a week.”

“Done.”

 

<< ~ >>

 

Five hours, a company van, and two exhausted deliverymen later, a complete set of wire, light-up lawn ornaments was sitting in the middle of a bookshop in Soho. The centrepiece of the set was Father Christmas sitting in his sleigh with a bag of presents; this wouldn’t have been so bad, except that _all_ _nine_ of his reindeer accompanied him.

Crowley was currently carrying out the necessary assembly on the relatively small patch of floor left in the middle of the bookshop, beside the tree and a small mountain of boxes.

It was getting cramped very quickly, and since Crowley planned on fitting the entire team of reindeer _inside_ the bookshop, the situation would only be worsening. Unable to do anything to combat the problem, because moving a single one of his books was out of the question, Aziraphale contented himself with sitting behind the counter and watching Crowley struggle to figure out which pieces went where. Luckily, the demon had made good on his promise to wear the reindeer antlers, which made the whole process bearable as well as making him look rather endearingly like the lawn ornaments he was struggling to assemble.

“Blast it all, why don’t they come fully assembled?” Crowley exclaimed, throwing up his hands in disbelief. “And those instructions! They might as well have written them in Sanskrit.”

“You read Sanskrit, my dear,” Aziraphale said mildly, and earned himself a poisonous look; the effect was rather negated by the reindeer antlers, which jingled merrily when Crowley looked up. Aziraphale gave him a blithe smile and turned a page in his book. The angel was wearing his new jumper, and it was just as warm and comfortable as he could have hoped for. It also seemed to perennially annoy Crowley, which made it all the better.

This was doubly amusing because Crowley had been the one to buy the jumper, in the end. When Aziraphale had gone to another checkout to purchase his lone jumper all by himself, thank you very much, the demon had snatched it from his hands. Crowley had said something about how he wasn’t about to let Aziraphale help the economy by buying something with genuine money, and then proceeded to pay for his own giant pile of Christmas decorations (Aziraphale-approved lights included) with a credit card that was almost certainly falsified.

“Hell should take notes on this thing,” Crowley muttered as he squinted at the instruction booklet again. The demon tilted his head slightly, as though the words would suddenly take on new meaning if viewed from a twenty-degree angle, and the tiny bells on the reindeer antlers jingled accommodatingly.

Aziraphale bit back a snigger and returned to his book. After a minute or two, there was another tinkle of bells and Aziraphale looked up to see Crowley gazing at him.

“Help?” he asked, looking particularly pathetic as he sat on the floor surrounded by wire reindeer limbs.

“Not from me,” Aziraphale said, perhaps a little too smugly. “You’re on your own there, my dear.”

When Crowley continued looking at him plaintively, Aziraphale allowed, “I’ll help with the tree, okay?”

“Fat lot of good you are,” Crowley said grumpily, turning back to the instruction booklet.

“You could just miracle it together, you know,” Aziraphale pointed out.

“It’s not the _same_ ,” Crowley said, sounding a little despondent about it himself.

“Suit yourself,” Aziraphale said, and miracled himself a cup of tea.

Crowley mumbled something about high horses and flipped through the booklet again.

In the end, Aziraphale gave in and went and lent a hand, since Crowley had made dismal progress in four hours’ time and Aziraphale was getting peckish and wanted to go to dinner.

They placed Father Christmas and his sleigh right in front of the tree along with the first pair of reindeer. The rest ended up set between the front windows and the foremost row of bookshelves, peering with blank wire eyes out at passersby. They needed to be plugged in for the lights to work, but, with a little encouragement from Crowley, they lit up of their own accord. At the unspoken request of Aziraphale, they began to twinkle.

 

<< ~ >>

 

The following day, Crowley tore all of the tinsel and strands of Christmas lights out of their boxes and cardboard sleeves, and announced that he was going to really get the bookshop into the spirit of things.

They started with the tree, Crowley pacing circles around the spruce with the bundle of lights while Aziraphale fussed over their exact placement on the branches. A few quick miracles arranged the lights on the upper half of the tree, even wrapping around where the crown turned at a right angle upon meeting the ceiling. 

“If we put something on the top, it’s going to fall right off,” Aziraphale pointed out. “A star or an angel or something. It would be horizontal.”

“Eh, it’ll stay if I want it to stay,” Crowley said. “So do you want a star or an angel? Thought a star might be less…ya know, playing favourites.”

“Favourites?”

“Well, it is your lot’s celebration, isn’t it?” Crowley pointed out. “Angels, angels everywhere, and not a drop to drink.”

Aziraphale frowned at him. “What’s _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_ have to do with anything?”

Crowley shook his head. “Never mind. But my point is that my side gets no representation whatsoever. I mean, I was at Bethlehem too! Never see _me_ in the nativity sets.”

“My dear,” Aziraphale said, a little surprised.

“But that’s why I was thinking a star,” Crowley continued. “More neutral.”

“Of course it doesn’t have to be an angel,” Aziraphale said. “Though it really is our celebration, as much as All Hallows’ Eve is yours.”

“Yes, I’m just saying it’s not terribly accurate, is it? But it doesn’t really matter. What _matters_ ….” Crowley strode over to the not-insignificant mountain of tinsel piled on the floor nearby, “is that we swamp that tree with so much tinsel it wishes it never sprouted in the first place.”

Aziraphale allowed his attention to be diverted with good grace, though some part of him wondered if Crowley did feel he had been excluded from the celebration of an event he had all but witnessed firsthand. To the extent of his memory, Aziraphale couldn’t remember Crowley ever expressing any inkling to celebrate Christmas before for the religious aspects. On the contrary, he had often taken pleasure in mocking, interrupting, or sabotaging religious ceremonies on and around the holiday.

As he watched Crowley disentangle strands of silver tinsel from the pile with apparent good nature, Aziraphale wondered sadly if Crowley had spent all those other Christmases feeling rather left out.

“Are you just going to stand there, angel?” Crowley asked, pulling a long length of silver tinsel from the pile and bundling it up in his arms.

Aziraphale shook himself and went to help, taking solace in the fact that Crowley seemed perfectly cheerful now.

“Do you want to use the gold as well, or the red, or just the silver?” Crowley asked as he tugged another length of silver tinsel free, shoving this one into Aziraphale’s arms.

“Er…gold and silver?” Aziraphale asked. “Though I don’t know what we’d do with the red, then.”

“We can put it around the door,” Crowley said, gently kicking the remaining tinsel into two rough piles by colour.

Aziraphale walked over to the tree and started winding the tinsel around, leaving enough slack in between branches to create slight scallop shapes.

“Tinsel pro,” Crowley teased as he picked up the slack and started following Aziraphale around the tree again.

“You just have to…take your time…” Aziraphale said, focusing on keeping the distance between boughs consistent as the tinsel spiralled higher.

Twenty minutes later, the spruce was circled with lights and silver and gold tinsel, and was starting to look like a proper Christmas tree. Part of Aziraphale still thought that candles would complete the effect, but his dedication to the safety of his books far outweighed his attachment to open flames.

Next, Crowley produced several boxes of ornaments he’d bought. Crowley had wanted to buy all manner of specialty ornaments, including ones shaped like villains from the latest American film franchises, while Aziraphale had insisted on more traditional options. In the end, they had compromised. Aziraphale had picked out several very nice sets of gold, silver, red, and green round orbs, while Crowley bought anything black or silver, including several newfangled ornaments that required batteries and lit up. While Crowley had been pursuing these peculiarly-shaped ornaments, Aziraphale had found several he liked as well, including a delicate angel ornament and one shaped like a wreath that sang snippets of Christmas carols.

Luckily, the newfangled ornaments were small enough that none stuck out too obviously on the tree, and the general effect wasn’t ruined too much. 

Once they had finished with the last of the ornaments, Crowley and Aziraphale stood back to admire their handiwork.

“Not bad, angel, not bad at all,” Crowley said, in the tone of voice of someone who had presumed the outcome would be very bad indeed.

“Hmm,” Aziraphale agreed.

Crowley raised a hand, middle finger and thumb pressed together. He looked at Aziraphale. “Ready?”

The angel nodded and Crowley snapped his fingers. The lights on the tree sprang to life, each bulb shining brightly, every colour of the rainbow represented. After a few seconds, several of the bulbs flickered off and on again, twinkling brightly.

“Is it everything you ever wanted?” Crowley asked theatrically.

Aziraphale smiled. “I’ll admit; this modern Christmas isn’t so bad.”

“See? I told you so,” Crowley said. “But this is just the tree. We still need to win the competition, remember?” The demon rolled up his sleeves. “We have to do the outside, too.”

 

<< ~ >>

 

“Crowley, my dear, are you sure you’re okay up there?” Aziraphale craned his head back, looking up at where his friend was perched on top of a particularly tall ladder on the pavement outside the bookshop.

“Absolutely,” Crowley said cheerfully, leaning over dangerously far from the very top step of the ladder, a plastic clip in one hand and a strand of Christmas lights in the other. The demon had almost finished stringing lights along the facade of the building, and Aziraphale had to admit that it did make the shop look considerably more friendly. Though hopefully not too friendly; he didn't want potential customers getting the wrong idea.

It was the middle of the afternoon, and the street was plenty busy, pedestrians in winter coats bustling by with hands full of shopping and mobile phones. 

A young woman wearing headphones walked past Aziraphale and under the ladder. She took care not to brush it, but Aziraphale started forward anxiously anyway, in case it wobbled; from the way Crowley was standing on it, it wouldn’t take much to shake him.

“You could get down and I could just move the ladder a metre or so, you know,” Aziraphale pointed out, a little worried.

“I’ve almost got it,” Crowley said, shoving the clip onto the lip of the building right above where the words ‘Ezra Fell’s Rare Books’ were painted. The demon hooked the strand of lights carefully onto the clip and fished another clip out of his pocket. He was still wearing the reindeer antlers, and the bells tinkled cheerfully as the demon shifted his weight.

Several metres up the pavement, the woman who had walked under the ladder suddenly slipped and fell. It was too warm for ice, so Aziraphale cast a suspicious glance at Crowley, who had started to whistle.

“Crowley.”

“Yes, angel?” Crowley snapped the next clip onto the building and reached for the strand of lights. Beneath him, another pedestrian passed under the ladder.

Aziraphale tracked this one with his eyes, and, about ten metres up the road, he suddenly slipped as well, sending his bag skipping across the pavement as he hit the ground hard, legs flying out from under him.

The whole effect was rather comical, but Aziraphale forced his tone into one of stern disapproval. “Stop it.”

“What?” Crowley asked innocently.

“Making those poor pedestrians fall over.”

“Hey, it’s winter,” Crowley said. “It’s slippery out.”

“Crowley.”

“They know it’s bad luck,” Crowley said evasively, wedging another clip onto the building.

Aziraphale sighed but when the next pedestrian slipped in spectacular fashion, he arranged for a passing stranger to help her up.

Crowley muttered something from the top of the ladder, and Aziraphale looked up at him.

“What was that, my dear?”

“I said, you’re no fun.”

 

<< ~ >>

 

“I didn’t know you knew how to bake,” Aziraphale said, a little sceptically, as Crowley carefully measured out half a cup of sugar.

They were in the kitchenette in the demon’s flat, surrounded by a small mountain of baking ingredients and several pots, pans, and baking trays.

“You just have to follow the directions, right? It’ll work out in the end. Humans do it all the time; it can’t be that hard.”

“If you say so.” Aziraphale fished out another handful of chocolate chips from the bag he was holding and popped them in his mouth.

“You’d better not eat all of those, angel, we’ll need them later,” Crowley said, shooting him a glance and then returning his attention to the recipe.

Aziraphale swallowed guiltily but did not relinquish the bag.

“Okay, we need a half teaspoon of baking powder,” Crowley read, and then looked over at the pile of ingredients. “Do we have that over there?”

Aziraphale obligingly poked through the canisters, boxes, and bags, and produced a small orange box. “Baking soda,” Aziraphale read. He showed it to Crowley.

“Is that the same thing?” Crowley asked, taking it and poking his thumb at the perforated area. Once he’d peeled back the corner of the box, he sprinkled a little onto his hand and frowned down at the nondescript white powder. “What do you think?”

Aziraphale shrugged and looked longingly down at the bag of chocolate chips. “I’m sure I haven’t the faintest, my dear, I usually just miracle things up.”

Crowley harrumphed. “Six thousand years and he never learned how to do things the old-fashioned way.”

“Never needed to,” Aziraphale said cheerfully, and indulged himself in another, smaller, handful of chocolate chips.

“Naturally,” Crowley said, and squinted at the recipe again. “Eh, it’s a powder and it says baking on it. It’s probably the same thing, right?”

 

<< ~ >>

 

“Where _did_ you get these pastry cutters, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, a little bemused as he turned a pastry cutter in the shape of an angel over in his hands. Its wings were spread and it held what was probably meant to be a raised trumpet; it was not dissimilar to the pair on his new jumper.

“Tesco,” Crowley said without looking up as he spread flour onto the rolling pin. “They must have been selling two dozen different kinds. I got the Christmas pack.”

“I see that,” Aziraphale said, poking through the pile and finding one shaped like a Christmas tree and another that might have been Father Christmas with a bag slung over his back.

“Are you going to look at them or cut out biscuits?” Crowley asked, finishing with the flour and hefting the rolling pin impatiently.

“I’m getting there, my dear,” Aziraphale said, carefully placing the angel-shaped pastry cutter on the rolled-out dough and slowly, deliberately pressing it down.

Crowley raised an eyebrow as Aziraphale, with the utmost caution, shifted the pastry cutter back and forth a fraction of a centimetre and then carefully lifted it. Aziraphale could almost hear Crowley rolling his eyes as the demon went to stir a bowl of sugar, cream, and butter together.

“What’s that for, again?” Aziraphale asked as he carefully started the process of cutting out a Christmas tree, leaving the absolute minimum amount of dough between the shapes.

“Peppermint bars,” Crowley grunted as he stirred faster, reindeer antlers weaving back and forth in the air as he rocked back and forth slightly. “I knew we should have bought one of those electric mixers.”

“We can do without,” Aziraphale said dismissively as he held a star-shaped pastry cutter above the dough critically, eyeing up the most efficient place to put it.

“Easy for you to say, it’s not your arm about to fall off,” Crowley said, and a moment later gave up. He waved his hand tiredly at the bowl, and the spoon raised itself into a vertical position and started stirring away of its own accord.

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “What happened to the good old-fashioned way?”

“It met sloth.”

 

<< ~ >>

 

“You didn’t strike me as the doll type, angel,” Crowley said, watching Aziraphale over the top of his sunglasses, antlers still firmly planted on his head.

“It’s not for me,” Aziraphale said, pulling the wrapping paper closer and carefully cutting a length free.

“Who’s it for, then?” Crowley asked. There was a sizeable stack of presents already stacked on the floor beside the demon, and another, slightly larger stack of things still to be wrapped on his other side. Rolls of colourful wrapping paper, scissors, ribbon, bows, and tape lay scattered between them.

“The local orphanage,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley bit back a laugh. “Orphans? You’re helping _orphans_?”

Aziraphale bristled. “Of course. They are more in need than ever at this time of year.”

Crowley sniggered and taped up the side of the present he was wrapping. “Couldn’t think of anything more cliché?”

“Just because _I_ think of people other than myself—”

“Hey, I think of plenty of people other than myself!” Crowley protested.

Aziraphale paused in wrapping and raised an eyebrow at the demon. “You’re wrapping presents for yourself, Crowley.”

“No,” Crowley said, carefully picking out a bow and arranging it on the present, “I’m finding a creative solution to the fact that the bottom of the Christmas tree looks barren without presents. It needed some, so I’m wrapping presents to put under it.”

“You could have wrapped empty boxes,” Aziraphale pointed out, undeterred.

“Well, that’s no fun, is it?” Crowley asked. “Who likes opening empty Christmas presents? So I…you know…put my possessions in them.”

“New possessions you just bought for that express purpose.”

“Nuance.”

 

<< ~ >>

 

“Angel, what are you doing?” Crowley asked, edging closer cautiously.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Aziraphale asked blithely, carrying on.

“It looks like you’re trying to break fifty years of hard-won discipline.”

“Nonsense,” Aziraphale said briskly, and continued tying ribbons and bows onto Crowley’s houseplants. 

“They’ll start getting ideas,” Crowley warned, glaring at the nearest plant to him, an innocent, beautifully-flowering begonia, as though daring it to contradict him.

“Your plants shouldn’t be terrified on Christmas,” Aziraphale said, reassuringly stroking the leaves of an African violet as he unwound another length of ribbon.

“They should be _especially_ terrified on Christmas,” Crowley said, continuing to glare at his plants.

“Don’t listen to him,” Aziraphale told the violet in an undertone, wrapping the ribbon around its pot and tying it in a bow. “He acts like he doesn’t have a heart, but he really does.”

“Angel!”

 

<< ~ >>

 

Aziraphale found the book he was looking for and worked his way perilously along the front aisle of the shop. He had to weave between the ends of the bookcases and the twinkling Prancer and Blitzen, and when he finally stumbled into the centre aisle, he all but collided with Crowley.

“Hey, careful there,” the demon said. He looked like he was just on his way outside, an enormous wreath in one hand and some sort of hanging contraption in his other. The felt antlers swayed back and forth on his head as he rocked to a halt.

“It’s your reindeer,” Aziraphale huffed defensively, and Crowley rolled his eyes and pushed the front door of the shop open. As he did so, there was a jangle of jingle bells from the bundle Crowley had replaced the usual lone bell on the top of the door with.

“Speaking of reindeer,” Aziraphale continued after a moment, standing on the threshold while Crowley walked around to the front of the half-open door and started hanging the wreath, “you do know it’s been a week, right?”

“A week since what?” Crowley’s voice asked from the other side of the door. There was a metallic scraping sound and the door vibrated.

“Since we went shopping,” Aziraphale clarified, adjusting his grip on his book.

“Oh,” Crowley’s voice said. “Yeah.”

Aziraphale frowned. “A week since you bought that ridiculous lawn ornament set, I mean.”

“Sure.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure if Crowley understood what he was saying. “You don’t have to wear those antlers anymore if you don't want to.”

Crowley didn’t respond for a moment. Then: “Don’t tell me what to do, angel.”

 

<< ~ >>

 

“Did you get a star?”

A pair of felt reindeer antlers emerged from behind the back of the giant light-up sleigh, from which Crowley had decided to hang their Christmas stockings. Crowley’s head appeared a moment later.

“No,” Aziraphale said, edging his way through the bookshop door with arms full of shopping bags.

“What, I send you to buy some things and you can’t even follow the list?” Crowley asked, rolling his eyes and ducking back behind the sleigh. “Did you buy those chocolate orange things, at least?” 

“Yes, I did manage to find oranges made of chocolate,” Aziraphale said, walking to the tree and depositing his bags on the floor beside it. “I had to ask, but the shop carried them.”

“Excellent. Those things are delicious.”

“I bought some candy canes, too,” Aziraphale said, pulling out a box of them. “I heard you can hang them on the tree.”

“Sounds good.”

“I also…” Aziraphale rummaged in the bag and then straightened. “Found eggnog!”

Crowley’s head appeared from around the corner of the sleigh again. “Brilliant! We’ll spike it with cognac.”

“Tsk tsk,” Aziraphale chastised, hugging the eggnog back to himself. “You’ll ruin the flavour.”

“Flavour shmavour,” Crowley said dismissively, while Aziraphale shook his head and put the eggnog back in the bag. He pulled out the tree topper next. After spending the better part of an hour looking over several shops’ entire collections of tree toppers and unhappy with any that he’d found, Aziraphale had decided to make one himself.

Aziraphale pulled a ladder that had been leaning against a nearby bookcase over to the tree, pulled it open, and started up it, tree topper under his arm. 

“So if you didn’t get a star, what did you get?” Crowley asked, voice floating around the back of the sleigh.

“Something better,” Aziraphale said as he reached the top of the ladder and reached for the crown of the tree; it would have been out of his reach, except the kinked top of the tree jutted towards him across the ceiling.

“Yeah, that’s encouraging,” Crowley said, and there was a jingle of bells as he straightened up from behind the sleigh. “Finally got these stockings up.”

Aziraphale carefully threaded the topper onto the tree, rearranging the branches so it wouldn’t fall off. Once he was satisfied, he started down the ladder. Crowley was waiting for him at the bottom, peering around Aziraphale’s shoulder as he came down.

“Is that…” Crowley trailed off. 

“Like you said,” Aziraphale said. “You were at Bethlehem too.”

Crowley turned an unfortunate shade of red and quickly busied himself looking at anything other than the tree topper. Aziraphale had fashioned it out of silver-backed pipe insulation that he had wrapped into a slowly-shrinking spiral shape. And at the tip of the spiral, where the head of his impromptu serpent tree topper lay, he had taped a pair of sunglasses.

“You may never be a part of Christmas as the humans remember it,” Aziraphale said kindly. “But you’ll always be a part of mine.”

 

<< ~ >>

 

Aziraphale stopped dead. “Oh, Crowley, what have you _done?”_

Crowley ground to a stop and looked over his shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

Aziraphale looked between Crowley and the object of his horror. “But it’s the _Bentley_.”

Crowley huffed a little and got in. “It’s not permanent, angel, don’t worry.”

Aziraphale approached hesitantly. “Are you sure?”

Crowley cast Aziraphale a sceptical look. “Yes, angel, I’m very sure.”

Aziraphale popped the door open carefully and slid in, careful not to close any of the garland in the door when he pulled it shut after him.

In addition to the garland draped over the vintage automobile, there was also a scattering of snowflake window clings on the windscreen, considerably obscuring Aziraphale’s view. Luckily, he wasn’t driving.

“Where are we going again?” Crowley asked as he pulled the Bentley out into the road. 

_“Oh, my friend,”_ sang Freddie Mercury from the stereo, _“we have the strangest ways.”_

“St Anne’s,” Aziraphale said. “I’m meeting the choir there to go carolling.”

The Bentley lurched to a very abrupt stop at Regent Street.

“ _Carolling?”_ Crowley repeated incredulously. “How old-fashioned could you be?”

“People still do it,” Aziraphale protested, and, though Crowley rolled his eyes, the demon turned left anyway. “Besides,” Aziraphale continued, “it brings people cheer.”

“It brings people migraines,” Crowley countered under his breath, but Aziraphale ignored him.

_“All my friends, on this one day of days,”_ sang Freddie. _“Thank God it’s Christmas.”_

“I mean,” Crowley said after a moment, “Just think about the lyrics. All of those old hymns, all about angels and peace on earth, good will to men, etcetera; doesn’t it get a little old after a while? Repetitious, at least.”

“World peace does not ‘get old,’ Crowley.”

“To you, maybe. If I have to hear one more _Oh holy night_ or _Glory to the newborn king_ I’m going to be sick.”

“I thought you liked Christmas music.”

_“Music_ , yes. _Hymns_ , no. I’m talking ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ and Dean Martin and Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra and all the rest—not ‘O Holy Night’ and…and…bleeding _‘In the Bleak Midwinter.’_ Contrary to popular belief, I am still, in fact, a demon.”

“As you like reminding me,” Aziraphale said mildly.

Crowley gave him a suspicious look, but Aziraphale only smiled beatifically at him.

Crowley harrumphed and turned back to the road. “Bloody angels,” he muttered.

 

<< ~ >>

 

“A _zir_ aphale!” Crowley called, a mischievous note in his voice.

Aziraphale, who was in the middle of dusting the shelves in the bookshop, stopped, immediately suspicious.

“Oh, _Aziraphale!”_ Crowley called again, and Aziraphale could hear him pacing through the bookshop, doubtlessly weaving between the tree, sleigh, and handful of reindeer. There was a muffled, shrill warble and the sound of something rustling.

Aziraphale had a sinking feeling that he really did not want to know what Crowley had in store for him, but he also knew that waiting would only delay the inevitable.

Sighing, he set down his feather duster and went to see what Crowley was about.

Aziraphale rounded the corner of the last bookcase and rocked to a halt.

“There you are, angel!” Crowley said, beaming as he strode forward. “For you.” Without further ado, the demon pressed into Aziraphale’s hands what appeared to be a rather large tree branch, dotted with crinkly green-brown leaves.

Aziraphale, flustered, accepted it clumsily, and as he did so the branch made a shrill shrieking noise not unlike a cat being strangled. The angel froze. He peered cautiously down into the depths of the leaves, and saw movement. Aziraphale shifted the branch to one hand and poked nervously at the leaves with the other. “What was that?”

Crowley continued beaming at him. “Take a look,” he encouraged.

Aziraphale gave Crowley a look that clearly communicated that, if he got his fingers bitten off, Crowley would be held completely accountable, and cautiously parted the leaves. There was a rustle, and a moment later a small striped grey and brown head bobbed above the leaves. It turned to look at Aziraphale and cocked its head at the angel, opening a tiny orange beak and letting out a sharp, indignant, warbling shriek.

“Explain,” Aziraphale demanded, staring at the bird.

Crowley grinned. “It’s a partridge,” he said.

Aziraphale looked from the bird to Crowley. “Er, why are you giving me a partridge?”

Crowley poked at the branch meaningfully. “It’s a bit out of season,” he lamented, “but that’s from a pear tree.”

Aziraphale continued staring at him, and then it all clicked. “No.”

Crowley took a step back and threw his arms wide. “It’s twelve days ’til Christmas, angel!” he said cheerfully. “On the first day of Christmas—”

“A partridge in a pear tree,” Aziraphale finished with a sinking feeling. “Though you’re not my true love, Crowley.”

Crowley waved away his words. “Eh, close enough. It’s not like anyone else was going to get you anything anyway.”

Aziraphale frowned at him. “Crowley, please do not get me two turtledoves tomorrow. And where did you even find a partridge?”

“Ah, a demon never reveals his secrets,” Crowley said, flipping his sunglasses down over his eyes from where they’d been sitting nestled in his hair, right in front of the now-ever-present reindeer antlers. “And what do you mean you don’t want turtledoves? And calling birds and geese a-laying and lords a-leaping and all the rest?”

_“Crowley—_ ” Aziraphale started, in a rather distressed tone of voice, before he realised the demon was teasing him.

“Come on, angel, where would I find maids a-milking in this day and age, anyway?”

“You’d find a way,” Aziraphale muttered.

“’Course I would,” Crowley said cheerfully. “But who wants a dozen drummers, anyway? They’d just be dreadfully noisy, and always getting underfoot.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed, relieved Crowley didn't seem interested in pursuing this avenue any further. “You do realise the twelve days of Christmas are the twelve days _after_ Christmas, though, right?”

Crowley’s smiled faltered, but then leapt back in full force. “Eh, close enough. And I feel that, in honour of twelve days until Christmas, we work up a rousing round…”

Aziraphale realised what Crowley meant just as the demon drew a huge breath.

_“On the first day of Christmas,”_ Crowley belted out, _“my best friend gave to me a partridge in a pear tree.”_

Aziraphale turned and tried to flee, but the demon pursued him. _“On the second day of Christmas, my best friend gave to me two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.”_

Aziraphale carefully deposited the pear tree branch on the bench of the light-up sleigh next to Father Christmas. The partridge shrieked at him again and tried to free itself. Aziraphale realised Crowley had tied its foot to the branch to prevent it flying away.

_“On the third day of Christmas, my best friend gave to me three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.”_

“Please, Crowley, you’ll be going on for ages,” Aziraphale said hopelessly as he freed the partridge’s foot with a wave of his hand.

_“On the fourth day of Christmas, my best friend gave to me four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves—_ my, so many birds!— _and a partridge in a pear tree.”_

“I’m not listening,” Aziraphale said stubbornly, walking past Crowley again as he headed back towards his bookshelves. Behind him, the partridge burst into the air and made a desperate bid for freedom.

_“On the fifth day of Christmas, my best friend gave to me FIIIIIVE GOOOOOOOLDEN RIIIIIIINGS,”_ Crowley belted, following Aziraphale shamelessly. 

The partridge ran into the shop window with a resounding thud and Aziraphale waved his hand at the shop door until it opened with a jangle of jingle bells. The partridge shrieked again and flapped desperately out into the winter air.

_“Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.”_

“Must you?” Aziraphale asked as he returned to his bookcases, picked up the feather duster, and resumed brushing the dust off the shelves.

_“On the sixth day of Christmas—”_

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

_“—my best friend gave to me six geese a-laying, FIIIIIVE GOOOOOOOLDEN RIIIIIIINGS, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear—”_

“Crowley, _please.”_

_“On the seventh day of Christmas—”_

“It’s been _three days_ , Crowley,” Aziraphale begged. “If you don’t give me some peace, I’ll be pleading self-defence when they ask me why I smote you.” (Presuming Heaven would have cared why Aziraphale smote a demon, which they wouldn’t have.)

_“—seven swans-a-swimming—_ nah, you wouldn’t smite little old me _—six geese a-laying, FIIIIIVE GOOOOOOOLDEN RIIIIIIINGS—”_

“Don’t tempt me, serpent.”

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

“Crowley, that’s not polite.”

“Whaaaat?”

Outside the bookshop, Aziraphale watched two passing strangers suddenly stop and pivot towards each other as though pulled from their parallel trajectories by invisible strings. They exchanged a quick kiss before resuming their previous courses as though nothing had happened, though both blushed bright red.

Aziraphale frowned at Crowley, who was sitting on one of the reindeer lawn ornaments with his feet propped up on the interior sill of the bookshop’s front windows, holding a bowl of popcorn.

“You’re baiting random strangers again.”

“Hey, it’s their fault they’re not watching where they’re going,” Crowley said, eating a handful of popcorn and peering around where Aziraphale was doing his best to block the demon’s view.

“Crowley, putting mistletoe outside the bookshop and then forcing people to kiss under it is not okay.” (And Hell wouldn’t have considered it proper demonic behaviour either, which just goes to show how out-of-touch they are with reality.)

Crowley gave Aziraphale his most innocent look. “It’s in plain sight,” he protested.

“It’s not _consensual_ ,” Aziraphale stressed. “This is worse than the ladder stunt you pulled.”

Crowley sniggered, but when Aziraphale snatched his bowl of popcorn away, he sobered considerably. “Come on, angel…”

“Don’t angel me,” Aziraphale said sharply. “I’m going to go take it down, and if you make me kiss anyone, so help me.”

Crowley mumbled something as Aziraphale strode towards the door to the bookshop. Outside, two lone men passing from opposite directions had the misfortune to step under the mistletoe at the same moment. They swung to face each other with mutual surprise, and kissed.

This one lasted longer than the others, and Crowley blinked in surprise as the two men broke apart, blushed a bit, and then one jerked a hand over his shoulder and said something with a smile. They walked off together in that direction.

A moment later, Aziraphale arrived and, with a wave of his hand, tugged the mistletoe free from its location. The angel glowered at Crowley disapprovingly through the window before turning to walk back inside, but Crowley was feeling a little like his plan had turned against him, and didn’t protest.

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

“Angel!” Crowley paced excitedly through the door to the bookshop and spun, looking for his friend. “I’ve got news!”

Aziraphale appeared a moment later, weaving around one of the light-up reindeer and picking his way towards Crowley. “What is it now?”

Crowley waved a sheet of paper at him eagerly. “You’ll never guess where I just was!”

“No, probably not,” Aziraphale agreed.

“The office—well—parlour—of the Soho Society!”

Aziraphale stopped and blinked at the demon. “What?”

“The Soho Society!” Crowley said excitedly. “Remember? They hosted that competition for the best-decorated business in Soho?”

Comprehension slowly dawned on Aziraphale’s face. “Oh, yes.”

“They judged the competition earlier today,” Crowley said, and waved the paper in Aziraphale’s direction again. “We won!”

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

“No, no, angel, this is the best one yet,” Crowley said, following Aziraphale as he strode along the edge of St James’s Park, leaving fresh footprints in the freshly-snow-blanketed pavement. “‘Our fervent hope is that you thoroughly enjoy your Yuletide season.’”

“What _are_ you going on about, my dear?”

“I explained already,” Crowley said, quickening his pace so he didn’t fall behind, squinting at the webpage he’d pulled up on his shiny new iPhone. (It was one of his many presents to himself, though he hadn’t had the patience to wait to unwrap it until Christmas Day.) “It’s the name of a Christmas carol that’s been turned into synonyms.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Crowley.”

“Sure it does,” Crowley said. “It’s ‘our fervent hope is that you thoroughly enjoy your Yuletide season,’ right, so it’s ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas,’ get it?”

Aziraphale frowned at Crowley. “No.”

Crowley let out a short, exasperated sigh. “‘Our fervent hope’ means that you’re wishing, right?, and ‘thoroughly enjoy your Yuletide season’ means that you should have a Merry Christmas, see, because Yule is another name for Christmas!”

Aziraphale’s frown deepened. “Why would anyone do that?”

Crowley sighed again, but he still seemed to be enjoying himself. “It’s funny, angel, that’s why. It’s a game. You’re supposed to guess.”

“Well, it’s not a very _fun_ game, is it, then?” Aziraphale huffed, but Crowley only scowled good-naturedly and swatted Aziraphale’s arm with his phone.

“Here, we’ll try again,” Crowley said as they skirted a group of pedestrians. “‘Sir Lancelot with laryngitis.’”

“Lancelot isn’t real, Crowley.”

Crowley sighed. “It’s ‘Silent Night,’ because Lancelot’s a knight, and he’s silent because he’s got laryngitis.”

Aziraphale stopped suddenly and Crowley almost kept going without him.

“Wait, I understand!” Aziraphale said suddenly. “It’s a—a—what do you call them? Puns!”

Crowley beamed. “Yes! Well, that one was at least.”

“I still don’t see why it’s a game,” Aziraphale said after a moment, and continued walking. “If they meant ‘Silent Night,’ why not just say that?”

“Shush, angel, stop sucking all the fun out of life,” Crowley chastised, scrolling down the webpage. “Here, how about ‘We are Kong, Lear, and Nat Cole’?”

Aziraphale frowned in concentration. “Cong, Lear, and natcole…well, Lear was one of Shakespeare’s fellows, wasn’t he? And cong is…doesn’t that have something to do with precious stones? Jade or turquoise or one of those?”

Crowley sighed. “All right, I probably shouldn’t have expected you to get this one. It’s ‘We Three Kings.’”

Aziraphale cast Crowley a puzzled glance. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s King Lear from Shakespeare, and King Kong is one of those American films, and Nat King Cole was a musician back in the, oh…forties and fifties? He did jazz. You’ve heard of him.”

“Well, how was I supposed to put all of that together?” Aziraphale asked. “If they wanted to pick three kings, why not pick, oh, Solomon, Agamemnon, and Nebuchadnezzar?”

Crowley missed a step and almost lost his balance. Aziraphale hurriedly grabbed his arm to steady him, and then realised that Crowley was laughing.

“Oh, angel, never change,” he said as he straightened up, patting Aziraphale on the elbow.

Aziraphale frowned at him. Had he said something amusing?

“Here, let’s try an easier one,” Crowley said after a moment, sniffing back what might have been more laughter as he looked at his phone again. “Look, I’ll even pick one I know you know. How about ‘May the deity bestow an absence of fatigue to mild male humans.’”

Aziraphale frowned, turning the clue over in his head. “‘The deity,’ that’s Father, then, ‘an absence of fatigue,’ is sleeping, ‘mild male humans’ could be, er, anything, really. So God, sleep, men. God shall make the men sleep. God-given sleep to men.”

Beside him, Crowley sniggered.

“Oh, shush, it was your idea in the first place,” Aziraphale said, and it was his turn to swat his friend on the arm.

“It’s just amusing watching your thought process,” Crowley said innocently, rubbing his arm. “You’re on the right track.”

“Right track,” Aziraphale muttered. “God gives sleep to mild male men…they’re sleeping…oh! ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen!’”

“There you go!” Crowley confirmed triumphantly, and Aziraphale smiled.

“That wasn’t so bad. Here, give me another one.”

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

“Take that, fiend!” Aziraphale threw his weapon as hard as possible and then fell back behind his fortifications. 

He heard the faint _thwack_ of the snowball hitting something, and then Crowley yelped. “Ow!”

Aziraphale bit back a laugh and then regretted it when something exploded by his ear, showering him with snow.

“Come out and face me, coward!” Crowley called, and then his voice dropped an octave, into a deep, soothing baritone. “I assure you it’s perfectly sssafe.”

Aziraphale started gathering snow into his hands, packing it together tightly.

“Why should I trust you?” Aziraphale asked in a loud voice, buying time as he set down his snowball and started hastily forming a second one.

“My upssstanding reputation,” Crowley hissed coaxingly, and Aziraphale heard the crunch of snow as the demon crept closer.

“Your reputation, serpent, leaves much to be—desired!” Aziraphale sprang out from behind the snowbank and hurled his first snowball at Crowley. At the same time, he tried to dodge as Crowley lobbed one at him. It hit Aziraphale’s shoulder and exploded, sending the angel tumbling to the snow as he lost his balance.

“Ha!” Crowley cried, and leapt towards him.

Aziraphale rolled onto his side and threw his second snowball at Crowley in a last-ditch attempt at self-defence.

It hit Crowley squarely in the chest, but the demon ploughed forward anyway. 

Aziraphale realised what he planned on doing and scrambled to his feet just as Crowley barrelled into him. “Gotcha!”

The pair tumbled to the snow, Aziraphale making some noises he would be embarrassed about later and trying to scramble away. Crowley, meanwhile, seemed intent on getting as much snow on Aziraphale as physically possible.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale said in as controlled of a voice as he could manage as he smacked the demon with a handful of snow.

He managed to splash some into Crowley’s face, and the demon hissed and released Aziraphale long enough for him to scramble free. Aziraphale retreated a healthy distance across the snow-covered park before realising he couldn’t hear Crowley pursuing him. Aziraphale let his pace drop into a walk and made a beeline for a nearby bench. He brushed the snow off it and sat down.

Crowley arrived a moment later, still pawing flakes of snow off his cheek with the back of his hand. 

“Parley,” Aziraphale said, miracling a teacup of hot apple cider into existence and offering it to Crowley as the demon dropped onto the bench next to him. Crowley shook his head.

“We’re getting too old for this, angel,” he said after a moment, sitting back on the bench and rubbing his lower back.

“We’ve always been too old for this,” Aziraphale said, and took a sip of his cider.

“You can say that again,” Crowley muttered, and, with a wave of his hand, miracled a mug of hot chocolate into existence for himself.

Aziraphale peered over at the demon’s drink curiously. Crowley tapped the edge of the mug with one of his fingers, and a dozen miniature marshmallows appeared on the drink’s surface, along with shavings of what looked like peppermint sweets.

Crowley saw Aziraphale watching him. “Tastes better that way,” he said, a little defensively, and started warming his hands on the mug.

Aziraphale hummed agreement, and for a few minutes they just sat in a companionable silence, sipping their warm beverages and watching a few snowflakes drifting lazily through the air. The frosty smooth expanse of the frozen lake in St James’s was just visible through the trees, stretched like a pale blue ribbon near the horizon. The weather had turned colder recently, bringing with it a healthy amount of snow and traffic accidents.

“Hey, angel,” Crowley said at last.

“Yes, my dear?” Aziraphale asked mildly, admiring the way the sunlight sparkled off the frost clinging to the bare tree branches.

“What do you say we go try something else we’re too old for?”

Aziraphale cast the demon a sidelong glance. Crowley had that slightly mischievous glint in his eye again, and, with a dismissive motion of Aziraphale’s hand, both of their drinks vanished. “What did you have in mind?”

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

Crowley swore loudly as he hit the ground hard for what Aziraphale counted was the fifth time.

Aziraphale, muffling laughter behind his hand, glided over effortlessly and slid to a stop beside the fallen demon. 

“My dear,” Aziraphale began, but Crowley held up a hand.

“Don’t say it.”

“Are you _sure_ you know how to ice skate?”

Crowley glared up at his friend, but there was no real menace in it. “Of _course_ I know how to ice skate, angel. How do you think I get across the frozen door-to-door salesmen in Hell, anyway?”

Aziraphale shrugged loosely and reached down to help Crowley up. “Fly?” he suggested.

Crowley gained his feet and wobbled dangerously, skates shifting back and forth on the ice. “Yeah, well, how come you’re such a right hand at this anyway?” Crowley asked, gesturing at Aziraphale and almost losing his balance in the process. 

“Beginner’s luck, I suppose,” Aziraphale said modestly, steadying Crowley before carefully backing away and gliding in a lazy circle around the demon. “I mean, it’s just physics, isn’t it? Sort of like dancing, but you don’t have to raise your feet as much.”

“In case you had forgotten,” Crowley said in his best drawl as he carefully moved a shaking foot forward and slid a few inches, body tense and hands raised for balance, “you can’t dance.”

Aziraphale executed a neat pirouette and skated back towards the demon. “I can dance the gavotte.”

“We’ve been over this before, angel,” Crowley said between clenched teeth as he stared at the ice, focusing on moving his feet slowly forward, skates skittering beneath him as he slowly gained speed. “The _gavotte_ is not a proper dance.”

“If you insist, my dear,” Aziraphale said lightly as he glided past Crowley, closing the arc of his figure-eight.

“This—shouldn’t be—this hard,” Crowley grunted as he continued shuffling his feet, picking up some speed while his arms weaved wildly through the air, struggling to keep his balance. “It’s just—snakes weren’t—really designed—for legs—”

Just then, the front of Crowley’s left skate caught on the ice, pitching him forward even as his right skate shot to the front and side. Crowley’s arms cartwheeled wildly as he tried to break his fall and stay on his feet at the same time, and he ended up spinning in a half-circle. 

Aziraphale had the misfortune to be passing by at that exact moment, and one of Crowley’s wildly waving arms caught him around the middle. The demon latched on, Aziraphale did a last-minute course correction to try and bank around him, lost traction, and crashed to the ice just as Crowley finally slammed onto the surface himself.

For a moment they both just sat there, stunned and winded, and then Crowley reached out and smacked Aziraphale lightly around his head with his hand. “This was the worst idea you ever had, _angel.”_

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

“See, _their_ tree is nice and tall,” Crowley said, taking a sip of his complimentary champagne. “I don’t know why you stay on my case about ours.”

_“They_ have the room for it,” Aziraphale said, craning his head back to look at the top of the elaborately-decorated twenty-five-foot-tall Christmas tree. The railings of the circular second-story balcony ringing the upper half of the tree glittered with strands of garland.

A man with an immaculate black suit and white gloves stopped beside them and inclined in a slight bow. The modest name tag on his breast said his name was Pierre, the word etched in elegant silver lettering beside the crest of the Ritz Hotel. “Misters Crowley and Fell?”

“Yes,” Crowley said, turning and self-consciously straightening the cuff of his own suit. The demon had forgone the reindeer antlers for dinner, which Aziraphale saw as a massive missed opportunity.

“Your table is ready, if you’d care to follow me.” Pierre straightened and motioned unobtrusively for them to follow him.

They passed through a room panelled in white with ornate gold moulding, and then through another inset with mirrors. In the near distance, a live band played “Carol of the Bells” on strings. Pierre stopped and motioned for them to take a seat at one of the round tables. It was covered with a long white tablecloth and already set with shining silverware, fluted glasses, and a pair of twin candles.

“The first course will be out presently, sirs,” Pierre said, and poured them two glasses of sparkling water. He relieved them of their half-drained champagne flutes and produced two freshly filled ones.

“I wonder if they’ll have those mince pies again this year,” Aziraphale asked absently once he had gone.

“They might,” Crowley said, sipping his sparkling water. “I booked us the Christmas pudding, but we can change it if you like.”

“No need, that should be quite good, too,” Aziraphale said mildly.

Aziraphale hadn’t even had the chance to get properly hungry before Pierre returned with another waiter in tow. Delicate, white-gloved hands carefully placed two white china plates on the table. An artistically-arranged terrine of smoked salmon filled most of the space, surrounded by a zigzagging drizzle of something that might have been vinaigrette and a perfectly cylindrical dab of crab and cucumber jelly.

“What are your wine preferences, sirs?” Pierre asked politely, sweeping his hands behind his back.

“We’d like your finest bottle, please,” Crowley said. “The absolute best you have.”

Pierre nodded with the same measured politeness he had shown everything else. “Of course, sir. It will be out at once.”

Once Pierre had gone, Aziraphale lifted his champagne flute to take a sip and smiled into it.

“What are you so happy about?” Crowley asked, picking up his fork and knife and starting in on his salmon.

“Your _finest bottle,_ please,” Aziraphale mimicked in a tone James Bond would have been proud of, and Crowley scowled at him.

“Oh, shut up, angel.”

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

Several plates’ worth of shellfish bisque, bronze turkey, roast potatoes, glazed carrots, chestnuts, pudding, tea, and a bottle of very old, very expensive wine later, Aziraphale sat back in his chair.

“Please tell me you still don’t want mince pie,” Crowley said in a tone not far from a groan. “Because I don’t think I could stomach so much as another one of those mint chocolate things, and they are _superb._ ”

“No, I’m _quite_ done,” Aziraphale said, searching for the napkin with his free hand and dabbing at his mouth with it.

“That’s what you said before the mousse showed up,” Crowley pointed out, and fished among the glasses and flutes on the table for the sparkling water. 

Pierre chose that moment to reappear, as respectful and polite as always as he placed another gleaming white plate on the table. This one held a single Christmas cracker, wrapped in shining red paper and tied with silver and gold silk ribbons.

“Your Christmas cracker, sir,” he said to Crowley. “Is there anything else I can do for you gentlemen tonight?”

“I don’t believe so,” Crowley said, and Pierre nodded and made a tactful retreat.

Crowley picked up the Christmas cracker and turned it over in his hands. On the opposite side of the table, Aziraphale sat even further back in his chair and looked like he wanted to fall asleep.

“Come on, angel, help me with this.”

“I appear to have eaten too much.”

“Yeah, yeah, miracle it away later,” Crowley said unsympathetically, though he was feeling slightly queasy himself. Despite having all but invented the art of temptation, Crowley was surprisingly inept when it came to turning down excellent cooking, though he certainly had more willpower in that department than Aziraphale. “Come on, angel, I didn’t buy this thing for nothing,” Crowley said, and shook the end of the Christmas cracker at him.

Aziraphale groaned but sat forward nonetheless, holding out a hand. Crowley angled the other end of the Christmas cracker into it and waited for Aziraphale to get a grip. Crowley counted quietly, and on three they both pulled.

There was a sharp snap and the cracker broke in two, spilling several silvery strands and a small silver box onto the table.

Crowley looked at his half of the cracker and then over at Aziraphale’s, and saw that he had the larger half. “Ha! Mine’s bigger. I win.”

Crowley rifled through the silver strands on the table and snatched up the box. 

Aziraphale ruefully put down his half of the cracker. “What is it?” he asked.

Crowley cracked open the box, which was embossed with the Burberry logo, to reveal a set of silver cufflinks with tiny inset diamonds.

“Diamond cufflinks,” Crowley said approvingly, plucking one out to examine while showing the box to Aziraphale.

“Real diamonds?” Aziraphale asked. “How much did you pay for this thing?” He indicated the remains of the Christmas cracker.

“You don’t want to know,” Crowley said, holding the cufflink up to his left cuff.

“Well, you can have them.”

Crowley frowned at Aziraphale as he took the box back and popped the cufflink back in. 

Pierre appeared again with the bill. Crowley handed him a credit card and he vanished. Aziraphale cast Crowley his usual disapproving look.

“Here, I’ll buy us another cracker,” Crowley said. “And you can keep the prize this time.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something, but Pierre reappeared just then with his usual uncanniness.

“Mister Crowley, regrettably there seems to be something wrong with your card.”

Crowley frowned at the waiter. Aziraphale gave the demon a didn’t-I-tell-you-so look.

Crowley rolled his eyes and stood up. “Here, let’s go get this sorted,” he told Pierre. He turned back to Aziraphale. “I’ll meet you at the car?”

Aziraphale nodded and took a last sip of champagne. It really was quite excellent.

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

“I thought you meant you were going to buy another cracker from the Ritz,” Aziraphale said, bemused, as Crowley got back into the Bentley and tossed a box of four crackers to the angel.

“Nah, you wouldn’t like any of their prizes anyway,” Crowley said as he put the Bentley into first gear and pulled out into the road in front of the Tesco’s. “This is more your style, right? And besides, the Ritz one didn’t have a joke. I like jokes.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows at this but turned the cheaply packaged Christmas crackers over in his hands anyway.

 

_< < ~ >>_

 

“Here, angel, I know you’ll get this one. How did Scrooge win the football game?”

Aziraphale frowned speculatively and drummed his fingers on the table. “ _A Christmas Carol_ , Dickens, ghosts…I don’t know.”

Crowley grinned from across the table. “The ghost of Christmas passed.”

Aziraphale groaned and picked up the next cracker, taking a moment to adjust his paper crown as it threatened to fall off.

Crowley proffered his hand and waggled his fingers in preparation. “Hurry up, angel, I want to win another tape measure.”

“’Cause you’re really going to use the one you just won,” Aziraphale said as he handed the other end of the Christmas cracker to his friend.

“Hey, I’m very attached to my tape measure, don’t mock him,” Crowley said, taking ahold of the cracker and flexing his fingers. “It’s not my fault you don’t like your tweezers and crayons.”

Aziraphale tugged at his end, and the two man-shaped beings pulled until the cracker broke open with a snap.

“Mine,” Aziraphale claimed as he glanced at his half of the cracker, which was significantly larger than Crowley’s.

“Well, I’m perfectly happy with my tape measure,” Crowley huffed as Aziraphale scooped up his prize. 

“Ooh, it’s a miniature deck of cards,” Aziraphale said, turning his prize over in his hands with apparent delight.

“What’s the joke?” Crowley asked, sitting back and adjusting his paper crown.

Aziraphale found the scrap of paper and unfolded it. “What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?”

Crowley considered for a moment. “What?”

Aziraphale looked back down at the slip of paper. “Frostbite.”

Crowley huffed something that might have been a chuckle and sat forward. “Well, that’s the crackers done,” he said, sweeping the miscellaneous scraps of paper into a pile on the corner of the table.

Aziraphale glanced at his watch; evening was setting in. “Wine?” he suggested.

Crowley stood up and stretched, pulling the paper crown from his head when it started to slide off at his movement. “Soon,” he agreed. “I won’t subject you to the _Doctor Who_ Christmas special—I think I’ve force-fed you enough of the twenty-first century for now. You deserve a break.”

“Much obliged.”

“I was thinking of something older—maybe _It’s a Wonderful Life_? It’s got Jimmy Stewart.”

Aziraphale gave a nod of approval; as far as he was concerned, Jimmy Stewart was the pinnacle of cinematic excellence.

“I’ll pop it in, then,” Crowley said cheerfully, and moved around the nearby sofa to the flatscreen LED TV he’d bought last year and mounted on the wall of the back room of Aziraphale’s bookshop without his permission. The sofa had been an earlier addition, also procured by Crowley when the demon decided Aziraphale didn’t have enough comfortable sitting areas in his bookshop.

“I’ll be right back,” Aziraphale said, and wandered out into the bookshop proper. 

Once he was gone, Crowley cast a furtive glance around the back room and then dropped onto the floor. He reached under the sofa and moved his hand around for a few seconds until his fingers bumped into something smooth and boxy. Crowley retracted his arm, carrying a distinctly book-shaped box out with him. He moved behind the sofa, where he was out of sight of the door, and hastily unwrapped the present as he fished something out of his pocket.

When he was done with his last-minute tampering, he wrapped the present back up and shoved the box behind the side of the sofa, out of sight of the doorway. Then he scrambled to his feet and started queuing up the movie.

Crowley had just paused the movie on the opening scene, which was that charcoal grey that passes for black in old black and white movies, and spangled with white stars, when Aziraphale walked back in.

Crowley noticed immediately that the angel looked slightly guilty, and his hands were held behind his back in such a way that implied he was holding something.

“Speaking of the twenty-first century,” Aziraphale stated.

Crowley felt his curiosity pique. “What is it?”

Aziraphale moved closer, but whatever he was holding stayed firmly obscured behind the horrendous red Christmas jumper the angel had donned once they’d returned from the Ritz.

“Well,” Aziraphale began. “It _is_ Christmas, and you _are_ about the only friend I have—”

_“About?”_ Crowley interrupted. _“About?_ Who are these other friends? Michael? _Shadwell?_ He burned your bookshop down, remember, some friend he was.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something defensive, and then realised that Crowley was teasing him.

“As my friend,” Aziraphale began again, with a slight huff, “and with the extra care given to the Christmas season this year, I decided to get you something.”

Crowley flopped down on the sofa. “All right, let’s have it,” he said, in the tone of the long-suffering. “Get it over with.”

A faint smile flitted across Aziraphale’s face, and then the angel shifted the weight in his hands and drew around him a large, red-leaved poinsettia. He held it out.

Crowley blinked at it for a moment and then accepted it. It was large and bushy, with bright red leaves folding over dark green ones. The pot was wrapped in shiny red foil, and crinkled as he took it from Aziraphale. There was a small parchment-coloured tag tied to one of the branches. It looked healthy and very much alive, and like it didn’t need very much threatening at all.

“Well,” Crowley said after a moment of examining his latest victim, “thanks, angel.” He looked up at Aziraphale and adopted a tone of exaggerated gratitude. “I’m honoured you’ve entrusted me with this plant, and I’ll be sure to water it and look after it and thre—”

Aziraphale smiled at him and sat down on the sofa. “Read the tag,” he said.

Crowley cut himself off and shifted the plant onto his lap so he could open the folded-over piece of paper tied to the poinsettia. Inside was a note in Aziraphale’s neat copperplate handwriting.

_“I, Aziraphale,”_ it read, _“hereby acquiesce to participate in any modern activity selected by the recipient (Crowley) for the goal of submersion in the twenty-first century on Earth, for a period of one hundred (100) hours.”_

Crowley blinked at it in surprise and then looked up at Aziraphale.

“This twenty-first century Christmas was rather enjoyable, really,” Aziraphale explained. “I wouldn’t mind trying out some other things since I am, as you insist, always behind the curve. So you can take this any way you like—I’ll watch some of those new films you’re always talking about, or you can take me to one of those concerts you insist play “music,” or even,” —here Aziraphale grimaced— “try to show me how to use one of those “computer” things again. I’ll give it my best shot.”

Crowley continued staring at his friend. Aziraphale hadn’t offered to go along blindly with any of Crowley’s plans since that time in 1758 when the angel had said they could get a drink “anywhere Crowley wanted” and Crowley had taken him to a house of extreme ill repute just to see the expression on his face.

Aziraphale must have been thinking along similar lines, because he hastily added, “Within reason, of course. There will be limits and exceptions. I can write it down if you like.”

Crowley was already flying through a list of great movies and television shows from the last six decades, but then there were so many _other_ things, like mobile phones and Amazon and Post-it notes…

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, a tad hesitantly.

Crowley blinked, looked at the angel, and realised belatedly that he hadn’t said anything in a while. “This is great,” he croaked out, and Aziraphale gave him a slightly relieved smile. “Really, angel, we’re going to have so much fun. Well,” Crowley paused. _“I’m_ going to have so much fun. We’ll see about you.”

Aziraphale grimaced. “I’ll try not to regret this too much.”

Crowley huffed a laugh and sat back on the sofa, adjusting the poinsettia on his lap. “Oh, angel, you’re going to be regretting this tomorrow,” he said, running through a list of artists and bands he was going to fast-track to the playlist on his iPhone. Should he start with the greats of rock and roll and move into modern music, or the other way around? Aziraphale was at least already familiar with Queen, so maybe easing him into it was the right way to go. Death metal and hip-hop, on the other hand, also seemed like a swell introduction to the third millennium _anno Domini_.

Crowley interrupted his own thoughts by remembering the package sitting hidden beside the sofa. “Hang on, angel, I got you something as well,” he said, depositing the poinsettia on the floor and retrieving the rectangular package. He returned to the sofa and handed the gift to Aziraphale.

“Suspiciously book-shaped,” Aziraphale noted as he started peeling off the wrapping paper at the tape with the air of someone who has never been told that the point is to tear it open. Once he had tugged the wrapping paper free and set it aside—likely to save for next year, Crowley thought with a long-suffering internal sigh—Aziraphale popped the lid off the box. 

“Ooh, I was right,” Aziraphale said cheerfully, setting the lid aside and pulling the upper of two books from the box. “Mortimer’s _An Historical Narrative_. Hmm.” Aziraphale frowned at the book. “Sorry to say this, Crowley, but I already have this one. A rather nice copy, too, except there’s a water stain on the back cover…” Aziraphale flipped over the book and trailed off when his thumb ran over a water stain.

Aziraphale frowned and looked in the box again. Setting _An Historical Narrative_ aside, he pulled out the second book. “And Ramuriel’s _Inner Workings_ —I have this one, too…” Aziraphale frowned. “These _are_ my books.” The angel looked up at Crowley. “What is this? You stole my own books and then gave them back to me?”

Crowley was fighting back laughter, and the disapproving, disappointed look Aziraphale gave him made him lose the battle altogether. 

_“Really_ , my dear,” Aziraphale huffed, nestling the books back into the box. “It’s one thing when you buy yourself Christmas presents, and quite another—”

Crowley struggled to get his laughter under control and pointed with a shaking hand towards the lid of the box, which Aziraphale had set down right-side-up next to him on the sofa. “The lid,” he wheezed.

Aziraphale gave Crowley a distinctly suspicious look, picked up the lid, and flipped it over. Taped to the underside, right where Crowley had put it mere minutes earlier, was a receipt.

Crowley took a steadying breath and watched as Aziraphale peeled the receipt off the lid and looked it over. Then he paled.

Aziraphale looked up at Crowley and back down at the receipt. “You didn’t.”

Crowley grinned, fit of laughter finally overcome. “Oh, I _did_.”

Aziraphale looked down at the receipt again, and back to Crowley. He looked like he needed some help understanding, so Crowley jumped in.

“It’s the bill for our tab at the Ritz. The _entire_ tab, starting from back when the place first opened, remember that? I paid it earlier tonight. That’s why I went to talk to our waiter and the front desk. I gave them a credit card I’d already maxed, so the charge would bounce. Got you out from underfoot, didn't it? And then I went and paid by check for our meal, and everything on our tab.”

“But…” Aziraphale was still looking rather pale. “That’s…that has to be… _thousands_. Hundreds of thousands.” He unfolded the receipt to look at the bottom half, and the total.

“And with real money, too,” Crowley said, sitting back on the sofa and relishing the look of utter surprise on Aziraphale’s face. “Not the counterfeit stuff, or the extorted money, or the type that only exists on paper. That’s paid from my personal account, the money I made back in the day when I dabbled in stocks. Who knew that investing in gold in 1829 would be such a profitable venture? But it’s all honest, nothing you would consider ill-gotten.”

“My _dear.”_ Aziraphale looked up at him and for a moment seemed unable to say anything. “That’s so…so… _nice.”_

Crowley grinned. “Even Scrooge is nice on Christmas, isn’t he? Don’t expect it to happen again, mind; I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

Aziraphale nodded, a little shakily, and Crowley decided it was time to break out the wine, before the angel started to read too much into Crowley’s unexpected gesture of magnanimity.

“Here, drink it before you hurt yourself,” Crowley said a moment later, handing the angel a glass of red.

Aziraphale accepted it and took a sip. His hand only trembled a little. “Really, Crowley, thank you,” Aziraphale said as Crowley sat down next to him and put the bottle on the floor between them. “That was very commendable of you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Crowley said, fishing the television remote out from where it had fallen between the cushion and the arm of the sofa. “Really, don’t mention it. Below wouldn’t be very happy.”

“Oh, no, of course not,” Aziraphale said quickly.

“And, you know, thanks for the plant,” Crowley said. “It can help set an example for the others.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale chastised, but his tone was good-natured.

Crowley hit the play button on the remote.

_“I owe everything to George Bailey…”_

As the story of George Bailey’s life played out on the screen, Crowley and Aziraphale worked their way through the bottle of wine and tried to hide the fact that they had gravitated closer on the sofa. Crowley was buzzing pleasantly, and the alcohol really must have been having an effect, because he found himself thinking that Aziraphale’s hideous Christmas jumper looked very soft and comfortable, and he was feeling rather sleepy.

When Clarence arrived, jumping off the bridge to rescue the suicidal George, Crowley took the opportunity to make a few jabs about daft angels, which Aziraphale deflected effortlessly.

They neared the bottom of the bottle of wine as George walked, dazed and distraught, around a world in which everything was the same except he had never been born. The town of Bedford Falls—Pottersville now—was much worse off without him, though Crowley thought lazily that that seemed to be a rather optimistic view of a single person’s impact on the world, even if that person _was_ Jimmy Stewart.

Crowley divided the last of the bottle of wine between his and Aziraphale’s glasses as the movie wound down to a close. George was returned to his world with the help of the bumbling yet lovable Clarence, and his home was flooded with well-wishers who’d all come together to pitch in and help him pay off an unexpected debt.

_“Good idea, Ernie, a toast!”_ cried Harry Bailey, snow glinting where it lay dusted on his shoulders and Navy cap. _“To my big brother George, the richest man in town!”_

“A toast,” Crowley said, raising his own glass and clinking it uncoordinatedly against Aziraphale’s. He thought about everything he and Aziraphale had done the last month, all the experiences that were both new and old to him. This year’s celebrations were the best he had ever had, and he realised abruptly that he wished to do the same thing every year from now on. He didn’t know how to fit that into words, so he just said, “To Christmas.”

“To Christmas!” Aziraphale agreed, and they drank.

The darkness in the back room closed around them, warm and comforting, and Crowley felt himself starting to drift off again.

_“Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.”_

_“That’s right. That’s right…Atta boy, Clarence.”_

“Merry Christmas, angel,” Crowley mumbled, and he had never meant it more.

Beside him, Aziraphale shifted, setting down his empty wine glass and drawing the half-asleep Crowley closer to him. The demon let out a contented sigh and relaxed against Aziraphale’s side, fingers curling around the soft wool of Aziraphale’s jumper while he rested his head against his friend’s shoulder.

“Merry Christmas, Crowley.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Christmas carol game Aziraphale and Crowley play is a favorite of mine; you can quiz yourself and see the answers here: http://gomilpitas.com/humor/081.htm


End file.
